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Monday, October 31, 2011

The CrossFit Model (A Means To An End)

The CrossFit model is based partially on this theoretical pyramid with nutrition as the foundation and sport as the apex. With that in mind we will focus our efforts on creating a gym of super athletes by setting out goals that support each layer of the pyramid.

Nutrition. Most people resolve to eat better and lose weight. Our goal for the gym is to get as many people to eat a diet of whole, nutrient dense foods that promotes health and performance and minimizes inflammation and metabolic derangement. We will meet this goal by having at least three paleo challenges this year with at least fifty people in each challenge. Of course, we don’t view nutrition as a “challenge” but as an everyday reality that can be improved upon day to day with each eating choice that you make. So all year long we will support each other in trying to make smart choices about what we stick in our faces.

Metabolic Conditioning. Metabolic conditioning is largely dependent on your nutrition and your strength. However, workouts will try, as they always have, to hit the various energetic pathways with some regularity. Short, medium and long duration efforts will all show up in workouts and we will use more time limits and scaling options to make sure people are working at the proper intensity. A good indicator of whether we hit this goal is to have both our Fran and our 5k times decrease.

Gymnastics. A standing goal of this gym is Virtuosity. As such we want everyone to be great at bodyweight exercises. All of you will be doing pull-ups, dips, muscle-ups, handstand push-ups and free-standing handstands this year. Sure some of you will still be scaling with bands and such, but wherever you are now is not where you will be by the end of 2011. Get comfortable with uncomfortable. We are going to raise the bar on learning and training gymnastic movements. We might as well call 2011 “the year of the muscle-up.”

Weightlifting. Remember what Mark Rippetoe told us, “stronger people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general.” We are going to increase our numbers on the basic lifts. If you’re not getting stronger, you’re getting weaker. There will be more emphasis on lifting heavy things and making everyone stronger and more useful. We should see all our numbers go up in the squat, deadlift, bench, press, clean and snatch.

We always have to ask ourselves why are we doing this? What gives us joy? As we endeavor to maximize our joy we also learn to embrace the suck that comes with it (paradoxical as that may seem.) Feel free to make your own goals and resolutions and post them to the comments, but whether you do or not, we’ve got you covered.